Top 10 Awe-Inspiring Items at the Garage Company

The phone rings constantly, the bell that announces another customer has broken the electronic beam through the open garage door that opens onto Hyde Park Street dings only slightly less frequently. One guy really wants that Sportster with the twin flatslides but first feels the need to lay out his qualifications to Yoshi by listing all the other vehicles he’s ever owned. Another guy needs a part for his CB750. Many cool characters who look vaguely familiar from movies and half-remembered MTV videos saunter in under ironic hats behind cool shades.

Yoshi smiles through it all. If turning what you love into a business has a downside, there’s not much evidence of it here. His wife, whose idea it was originally to move Yoshi’s hobby into bigger headquarters than their suburban garage, flits in and out of the back office, also always with a smile. If you need a thing for your motorcycle, pretty much any motorcycle, Yoshi’s either got it or knows where to get it. And if you need your CBX tuned up or a completely custom bike built, feel free to wander into the huge shop that can also handle that. If you live in SoCal you’re in luck. If you have a little layover at LAX, it’s about a $10 taxi ride to Garage Company, and you can swing by Randy’s Donuts too.

Was I not just conjecturing the other day why there aren’t more BMW choppers? Here’s a beauty, complete with plunger shocks and springer front end. Naturally, with every natural and unnatural color scheme in nature homologated for chopper use, the BMW man paints his a tasteful brown. I didn’t see a price tag on this one, but something tells me you could drive a hard bargain. Then you could probably ride it to Argentina if this one’s anything like every other old Airhead.

One of the rarest old pieces of cr– I mean, one of the coolest deals in the shop is this fork/brake assembly that spins the brake disc the opposite direction of the wheel. Why? To cancel out the front wheel’s gyroscopic force when it’s time to turn, of course. Somebody at Grimeca must’ve had a lot of time on their hands in the ’60s. These were seen on some MV Agustas and other exotic race bikes, but apparently weren’t effective enough to warrant the added complexity/weight/expense. Would be very hip today with counter-rotating LEDs, maybe on your BMW chopper? Maybe not.

As if he doesn’t have enough to do, Yoshi also finds time every April to organize the Corsa Motoclassica at Willow Springs. In conjunction with the American Hysterical Racing Motorcycle Association, it’s become a big deal and a lot of fun watching Old World antiques deal with “the Fastest Road in the West” in the middle of the Mojave. Yoshi’s Metisse-framed hot-rod Triumph, the Bimota of the ’60s, remains his favorite thing to ride. It’s not much to look at, he admits, but it’s got that certain indescribable something he can’t describe.

The Crocker, all your vintage enthusiasts almost agree, is the Holy Grail of classic American motorcycles, and Yoshi will sell you this one for $175,000. It’s only a couple years old, but don’t call it a reproduction. Every piece of it is said to be patterned after the original, the only differences being the use of better materials which weren’t available when the first Crockers were built. Modern steel in the engine, for instance, lets the 80-cubic inch Twin put out a claimed 85 horsepower. Michael Schacht, legal and spiritual owner of the Crocker provenance, even moved his production facility to SoCal (Torrance, specifically), to even more closely tie the new bikes to the originals and be in touch with the people who were around when they were. It is a rare and cool beast indeed, with handmade aluminum tank and fenders, a transmission case that’s part of the frame, and a cachet known only to the cognoscenti.